The AI-powered English dictionary
plural abysms
(archaic, poetic) Hell; the infernal pit; the great deep; the primal chaos.
(now chiefly literary) An abyss; a gulf, a chasm, a very deep hole. quotations examples
The abysm of hell.
1623, Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, III, xiii
Dr. Prunesquallor had circled around Steerpike with his head drawn back so that his cervical vertebrae rested against the near wall of his high collar, and a plumbless abysm yawned between his Adam’s apple and his pearl stud.
1946, Mervyn Peake, “The Grotto”, in Titus Groan, London: Eyre & Spottiswoode
[T]he Shakespearean sonnet doesn't lend itself to a sequential narrative, because the rhymed couplet, without its paired feet trembling at that abysm of time, has to settle instead for the sound of sighing resolution, at regular intervals, over and over, before taking a deep breath and returning usually, for better or worse, to the same subject.
2015 January 30, Glyn Maxwell, “‘Ideas of Order,’ by Neil L. Rudenstine ”, in The New York Times